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Showing content with the highest reputation on 02/13/22 in all areas

  1. Another great post +1 I'll just add, the excuse given to justify torture, is a time limit and no other choice; @beeceethink probability over possibilities. If most victim's do not provide the information requested; the chances that you catch the right guy at the right time and get the right information, in time, is vanishingly small; sure, if we live forever we'll probably encounter such an unlikely scenario, and you'll be right...
    1 point
  2. Thanks for the clarification. Yes, you're right. But it's very difficult to obtain any quantitative picture from the article you provided. It's peppered with adjectivation, and adverbialisation directly derived from adjectives in almost every paragraph: cruel, brutally efficient cautiously, suspiciously ruthlessly, unhesitatingly, comprehensively, systematically, meticulously nearly certain, enough partial proofs, strong circumstantial case..., I'm aware that Hassner scarcely has any other way to qualify these procedures, their limits, compulsory character, range of applicability, etc., as the truth is we are inevitably constrained to use only historical analysis to infer these qualifications. A lot is presumably lost in "historical noise." Maybe contemporary sources were more interested in justifying their methods than really conducting a serious experimental analysis. I really don't know. I prefer to position myself among the sceptics and the cautious of the premise that torture is actually efficient in regards to obtaining information. Let me, please, insist on the particular point from the article that gave me pause: IOW: Most of the victims did not provide that information, if I understood correctly.
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  3. At last you clarify your question. The idea that the constants could have been different is not part of science, it can not be tested, it can not be falsified, it predicts nothing. It is just a "what if" fantasy. It's just like wondering what if Thanos won. It's not part of science. It's just fantasy. Since the constant couldn't have been different, the universe was not fine tuned for life, it was not fine tuned at all. Due to our natural anthropocentrism, we could believe that life is a special thing, but it is not. Your body is made from the exact same atoms as those found in a stone. Life is nothing more than a byproduct of natural selection. Much like symmetry, commutativity or entropy, what we know as natural selection is a set of mathematical concepts which are deeper that the constants of the universe. These concepts don't require any fine tuning in order to exist.
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  4. I do not think what you say it true. Most scientists, it seems to me, don't give a moment's thought to the question and simply accept the values of the fundamental constants are what they are. So in effect your "so what" option is what they subscribe to, by default. I think you are making a fuss about nothing, to be honest.
    1 point
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